Running for Lucy and to End SMA

Well, I am running the Santa Barbara 1/2 Marathon this November for Lucy and to End SMA and I just launched my fundraising page!  Some of you who follow my blog may be a little disappointed that I am not doing the full marathon (honestly, I am too) but if you came to my house for just one day, you'd quickly realize that this year is just not the year:)  When I was deciding what to do- or which race to run, the picture that just kept coming to my mind was me, at Disneyland during Lucy's Make-A-Wish trip, before the sun came up running 20 miles...on a treadmill.  I had to get my miles in and craziness was the only way to get them done.  More importantly, last year the race just was not ideal with Lucy in the hospital and unfortunately, events like that are very possible and I don't want to crush my family.  And you may remember that my body revolted and I am just glad I survived the entire ordeal.

This year, I am soooo excited because 3 of my sisters will be running with me.  It brings tears to my eyes to think of all of the sacrifices my sisters have made for me and this race is very symbolic of their support.  Also, Gwendolyn, who has SMA Type 1 just like Lucy, will be running with her parents.

So, please visit my fundraising page and donate, share or both!

We love you all.

Great Grandma Childers

My Grandma is going on a mission to her home land to serve in the Tahiti Temple.  Lucky for us, she had to come to the Consulate in San Francisco to take care of some passport/visa logistics.  She wasn't here for long so we picked her up in the financial district (and her friend who came to help) and we took a long scenic route back to the airport.  She was so tired because she woke up at 3 in the morning to get to the airport on time but we loved every second we got to spend with her.

Lucy was really excited to see her and made sure we called her "Great-Grandma Childers".  

Giants Game

Make-A-Wish invited us to go to a Giant's game and we normally don't jump at chances to be around large crowds of people but we thought it would be a fun family activity.  

I really love the city, I know there are a lot of gross things about it but I really think it is beautiful.

Lucy is taking the huge stadium and large mass of people in.

The kids got to meet Matt Cain, they actually don't know how cool this was but we'll tell them when they are older.

Dallin pretends to be a teenager sometimes and doesn't want to participate in fun activities.  This is the closest I could get him to the baseball players.  Hey, I am just lucky that I got a picture of Dallin.

Lost

Soooo, I just found out that I have lost 1000's and 1000's of digital pictures.  The only good thing is that I am not that great with computers and they could be somewhere in our terabytes (?) of memory and most of the pictures that are gone are from times that I blogged a lot so.... that's good, right?  I am trying to not let this stress me out because if I have any more stress my dentist said that I am going to break all of my teeth.  

Here goes to more blogging to ensure that our pictures are at least somewhere (and you better bet your bottom dollar that I will be uploading everything to several places).

I can't believe how fast summer is going, I was dreading it a little since our summer is about 3-4 weeks longer than usual.  We have had a lot of family in town to make it go by really fast.  Chad's parents came to visit, my parents came, Chad and the kids went to San Diego for a family reunion, Angela and Thomas were in the area for most of the summer and we have been venturing out a little more than usual.  I don't know if it is bravery or insanity, most of the time I think it is the latter but my kids are happier when we aren't inside all of the time.  

Chad's responsibilities have doubled up so our days are a little longer but we have a day nurse on Mondays and Fridays so that helps me tremendously.  I take advantage of the help and try to get tasks done while she is here and when there is a nurse here, I just can't feel comfortable sitting down.

One of our adventures was to Rancho, it has been awhile since the kids have been here and they were happy to see the small aircraft flying all over the sky.

They have been begging me for years (literally) to come to Cowa Bunga (an ice cream shop that their 1st grade teacher owns) and it was very delicious.

We also went to a farm - I guess that is something these city kids really like to see, which is still so weird for me.  Anyway, it was fun and the highlight was getting sprayed by a sprinkler, Lucy just wouldn't let us leave.

More posts to come... after I back-up my pictures.

Ballet Class

Well, we found a dance class.  I  mean, Jocey found a dance class for Lucy.  She was the one who was brave enough to ask her dance teacher if they "did dance classes for little girls in power chairs".  Lucy is so lucky she has Jocey for her big sister.  We would've invited every little girl we know but the dance instructor said it would be best if we kept the group small so... we kept it small.

The anticipation was just too much for these girls.  The instructor called me ahead to make sure she could adapt the class to Lucy and it was perfect.  I saw Lucy trying to do some of the facial expressions, she did such a good job.  I tried to step in and help her with her hands a bit but she told me to go away, "I want to do it all by myself!" She did, however, let Jocey help her.  They had so much fun and Lucy keeps asking me to go back...

I let flip do another video for me, it is just small clips of the video I took today.